The Nightwalker
by mettablade
Summary: The world is hidden behind smoke and mirrors. Every question, innocent or wicked, leads to more questions and more until the whole world is clogged up with questions wondering what is right and what is wrong. There is no answer. There is no good or evil.
1. Chapter 1

**The Nightwalker**

Prologue – Smoke

The world is hidden behind smoke and mirrors. Every question, innocent or wicked, leads to more questions and more until the whole world is clogged up with questions wondering _what_ is right and _what _is wrong. There is no answer. _There is no good or evil_. But yet there are moral and morally wrong people in the world, and some in between. The world has been continuously split and shredded into pieces by these people's arguments over what is right and what is wrong, even though this can never be answered. These schisms have let man's blood shed on paper, flesh burn in flames, and death to plague the world _just because one person thought the other was wrong_.

Unfortunately the story I am about to tell you are about one of these schisms.

It had started out as an innocent gathering to set out the world's fires – literally and metaphorically. These people worked as one to help resolve the problems of the world, and bring information together, thus allowing these people to flourish under the organization. For a while, it seemed like a utopia, except, these people knew not all evil could be repelled. They always knew that there would always be evil. A man once said, "It takes but two men to create a war." And this statement is true, because hermits never wage war on themselves, while two noble friends can easily pick up a fight and rampage at one another without thinking twice.

And indeed, noble people can become corrupted by the evil of the world. And with the evil swallowing the world, this organization soon was thrust into reality. Once noble volunteers became dark and treacherous, starting fires literally and metaphorically. The others fought back, trying to stop these fires – but once in a while, no matter how noble they were, these noble volunteers committed terrible deeds equally treacherous as the ignoble villains they were fighting.

It is known that man spreads misery from man to man, or from woman to woman, or woman to man or vice versa. This story will spread misery all over your computer monitor, your desk, your desktop, your keyboard, your piece of moldy cheese, and soon it will spread misery all over you, and you will wish you had never took a look at this story. But I am afraid the story must be told, and I'm afraid that this story will just be another source of misery that will wash over you, so turn back while you can. You have been warned.

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"Lemony! If you don't get down here right now, I swear, you are going to get it!"

It was a chilly winter morning, but it did nothing to falter Kit Snicket's angry tantrum she was throwing downstairs. She was used to the cold, as she was used to being ignored by her brother.

She sighed and felt her blood pumping in her ears. _Breathe, Kit. Don't get over your head._

"Lemony?" she shouted again. She saw a figure poke from upstairs, and then vanish once again. She groaned. "Do I have to come up and get you? We're going to miss _La Forza del Destino_ if you keep on cramping yourself up in that room of yours!"

There was no reply, but later when she exited to the car, her brother came shuffling out the door in the cold, quickly moving towards the car and entering. She smirked.

"I thought you weren't coming." She sniffed, in mock anger. "I thought you were going to sit and mope around your room about _her_."

Her brother stiffened from the seat behind her and drooped the hat he was wearing lower and looked down. "I _really _wish you wouldn't keep on talking about…" he mumbled the last part before shifting in the seat nervously. Kit smiled and started the ignition and began driving towards the theater.

Buildings flashed by quickly, and people were a blur on the streets as they bustled past, heads bowed and walking quickly to their destination. Kit frowned and continued her drive. Lemony only wriggled around some more in anxiety, and this continued for a while until they arrived at the theater.

As they stepped out of the car, Kit found herself suddenly alone. Her brother had a strange tendency to disappear without her knowing. She supposed it was a good idea, as he had not heard of her plans that day. He would probably be back by the end of the play but…

The way he always vanished bothered her so. It was strange. She turned around and realized why he had left in such haste. Heading towards her was a young woman walking quickly towards her.

"Kit!" The woman gasped in relief. "I thought you wouldn't make it…where's Le – uh, I mean…come on, I saved a spot for you." She said hastily, her voice jerky and filled with nervousness.

"Don't worry Beatrice," _Lemony's fine_. Kit replied leaving the last part out, and the two quickly headed towards the theater, their cold frames shivering against the cold gray sky.

The inside of the theater was warm and brought comfort to both women. But Kit knew that this wasn't any normal day to the theater. For her, unlike many other people who had come to enjoy the play, she had a mission to complete. This task had to be done with the utmost sufficiency. She knew her fellow associates were watching her, assisting her to make sure that the job was done right. But her enemies were also surveying the grounds, so she knew she had to be cautious. Hopefully her associates would stop them before they stopped her and Beatrice.

Indeed the play started out quite innocently, but Kit sudden dismissed herself. Beatrice nodded, and knew she was going to get the poison darts. She looked around anxiously. Nobody seemed familiar in the sea of faces…

She suddenly noticed another figure stalk out the door.

_Esmé. _

With a quick dash, Beatrice ran out to the back of the theater where the exit was, getting many angry faces from the people in the crowd, as she obstructed their view.

Kit was standing in front of the man selling the popcorn that she overheard saying: "I didn't realize this was a sad occasion."

"The world is quiet here." Kit said hastily, looking around nervously. The area was actually crowded with people, although most were latecomers that were about to watch the play. However, most were meandering around for no particular reason. "Please, the darts, quickly. I'm afraid our enemies are closing in on us faster than I expected."

The man seemed to become jumpier at the sound of enemies, his eyes darting around the large crowd filling the entire room, and quickly handed the parcel over.

"Not many people have the courage to participate in a scheme like this." He whispered. "Good luck."

Esmé suddenly came bustling in, nearly running people over.

"You!" she shrieked angrily, pointing furiously towards Kit, who instantly dove into the crowd, which blocked the villain's way. Beatrice stifled a cry as Kit swam past people frantically, the people instantly reforming into their crowd as soon as she pushed them away. Soon she was back in the theater. Beatrice nodded and Kit passed the darts.

"You shouldn't have come after me, I could have gotten the job done." Kit sighed. "But I suppose it was for the better. Now quickly. I must leave."

Kit vanished as quickly as she had come, leaving Beatrice with the darts. She knew what to do.

"What are you doing?" a voice hissed behind her. She turned around and looked back and forth, but found nobody. The voice was vaguely familiar…but of course, almost every voice seemed familiar to her now. Everything seemed so unfathomable, along with everyone's voices that she could hardly tell right from wrong anymore…

It was unfortunate that this night was one of the nights that everything seemed and was unfathomable. The food was unfathomable, the seats were unfathomable, the people around her were unfathomable, the actors were unfathomable, and her mind was completely blurred by the unfathomable world around her.

As she shot the dart, she felt the people around her seem to shift in surprise, but then realized it was probably only her imagination. The actors continued on, and it was only after the play that two fell to the floor, dead.

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_ A Few Years Later _

The smoke had risen to the sky and was now fogging up the entire once-blue sky completely. People were shouting, and as one knows, where there's smoke, there's usually fire. And indeed, there was, a large fire roaring at a beautiful mansion, tearing at its walls and scorching trees to the ground.

It had been the start of very unfortunate events indeed.

* * *

Well I hope you liked that. It's my first ASOUE fan fiction. 

Unfortunately I had to base this off of as many facts as I could, but of course you know that none of them are all too accurate. So if I made any mistakes, please tell me.

So…yeah!

EDIT: I just realized a ton of things I did wrong (2 to be precise) so I edited them. :O I feel stupid. LOL :D


	2. Chapter 2

**The Nightwalker**

Chapter 1 – Watching

* * *

He was sorry to see them go. The children were at the beach, the eldest one, Violet, skipping stones, her brother Klaus watching after the youngest Baudelaire, Violet. He was even more sorry to see the banker Mr. Poe, with his terrible cough, arrive to take them away. He wanted to jump out from behind the newspaper and stop him from taking the unfortunate orphans away, but he had already deemed himself weak, and too cowardly. In fact, he found it shameful he couldn't even look at almost anyone in the face…well, it was too late now. 

Clutching the newspaper stiffly in his hands, he crumpled it up in agitation. It was a perfect waste of paper, but the Daily Punctilio told naught but lies – most of the time. The children were already driving away towards their destiny, and towards much more unfortunate stories that would follow them.

_Unfortunate children…_ The very thoughts seemed vaguely familiar to his life. _Unfortunate me?_ He laughed bitterly as he slipped into a taxi. The keys were still in the ignition. People were so...vulnerable these days. He turned the keys and began following at a tediously slow rate.

The streets grew darker and darker as he continued driving after at a distance. They had driven near the neighborhood of Justice Strauss. Not to mention, Count Olaf. His teeth clenched slightly at the thought, and he shuddered.

_Unfortunate children will soon be in clutches of Olaf._ He scribbled in a dark green notebook. The old cover brought back memories from far back; such as…he shook his head. He couldn't get immersed in his childhood again, and began writing again. _Get filthy hands on fortune (?)_

He crossed the last part off as soon as he wrote it. With all the volunteers around, surely one of them would be able to send them help. And surely Count Olaf would never get his hands on the fortune…hopefully.

He watched as Justice Strauss welcomed the Baudelaires. All would seem quite pleasant. But several years later from now, he wished he could have jumped out of the taxi and taken them away – anywhere that was far, far away from Olaf. He watched as the Baudelaires looked towards Count Olaf's 'house', if anyone could call the rusty fortress-like home a house, aghast at its dusty and terrible condition. He watched in disgust as Count Olaf opened the door and watched in despair as the Baudelaires followed Poe into the house, and watched with dismay as the door slammed shut – he could have sworn Count Olaf had turned an eye in his direction, glowing with malevolence and excitement.

_One point for Olaf. None for Lemony._

He grimaced. There was nothing else he could do. He began to turn the car around when he suddenly heard a loud _thump _on the roof of the taxi. He glared out, and then gave a shout of annoyance. A crow was strutting on the roof of the car. Usually they would be carrying vital information, but this one was here with the duty to annoy him till he died. Well, at least that was what it seemed. The crow suddenly flapped away, and a small roll of paper fell to the dusty dark floor. He picked it up.

_Do NOT bring justice._

He frowned. Do not bring justice? That left him more questions. Once again, the world is filled of smoke and mirrors. There is no definite answer to almost everything, and questions lead to more, and to more, until you are filled with questions and are about to burst. Of course you never do burst, but it is agitating waiting for years and years for your questions to be answered, and sometimes when they are answered, you realize that the answer has always been in front of your face all this time.

He frowned once again, but turned the taxi around and drove off into the dark streets. There was nothing else he could do at the time to help the orphans.

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And like we all know, the orphans had a terrible stay for the few days they lived at the home of Olaf.

But of course, it was few days then when Lemony would understand the message brought to him, and by then, it would have been nearly too late.

On the day of _The Marvelous Marriage_, he drove in at the theater to watch. Volunteers had pointed him in that direction, telling him it was vital he went there to stop justice, before vanishing back into the shadows, leaving nothing but questions, questions, questions. As he exited the car, he was surprised to see one of the Baudelaires, Violet, rushing into the back stage with a look of urgency written on her face. He started to follow when he noticed Olaf following behind with a malevolent grin.

With a short sigh of dismay, he realized that there was no way he would be able to examine from backstage. Possibly many of his enemies were stationed behind there, so he had no other choice but to watch from where everyone else was.

He waited, squirming uncomfortably in the seat besides other people who he had no idea if they were volunteers, villains, somewhere in between, or some innocent bystander.

Needless to say, the night he spent that day was possibly the worst night ever besides the time he was forced to watch _The Littlest Elf_. He was able to continue watching however; knowing something important was due to happen until…

He realized it. _Do NOT bring justice._ By that, the messenger had meant that he had to stop Justice Strauss. The marriage wasn't a play. It was real. And Olaf was planning to marry Violet. That way he would get his hands on the fortune.

In life, people are wrong an infinite number of times. You may be wrong about getting to have three days of school and four days of vacation. You may be wrong about life being a dream. And you might be wrong about the fifth question on your math homework. But in all cases, these are but trifles. But what Lemony had believed earlier, the fact that Count Olaf would never get his hands on the fortune was wrong. By the time he had gotten up in a panic, nearly knocking over a woman sitting beside him, Justice Strauss was already beginning the speech.

"…take Violet as your wife?" he heard as he ran towards the backstage. He was endangering his life completely, and he knew his brother and sister would think back on this day and scold him for being so brash, but what else could he do? But by the time he had reached the stairs towards the back of the theater, he knew it was too late. The security was guarding the door as if they had foretold his coming. There was nothing he could do now. He would have tried to fight his way in, but it would attract too much attention. As he tried in vain to find another way in, he heard the magnified sound of a scratching of a pen as Violet signed the ticket to her demise.

He cursed Olaf. He cursed the Justice. He cursed the heavens, and cursed the earth, but most of all, he cursed himself for not realizing earlier.

Then there was a great sound of excitement, and a shriek of pure hatred and rage. He slipped back in just in time to see Olaf throwing a temper tantrum, and then the entire place turn dark.

He felt panic surge through him at first, which was then washed away by the cold intensity of long years of V.F.D. training. He dove in the direction Olaf would most likely head – the doors – but the crowd was blocking his way.

He felt a person push past him, and grabbed whoever it was, hoping to find Olaf in his clutches, but when the light flickered back on, he found an angry man in front of him, who asked, "Would you please get out of my way?"

Mumbling apologies, he noticed that the Baudelaires had vanished, and hastily ran outside quickly to see the orphans entering Mr. Poe's car once again, the chirping of crickets and the hissing of the silent nighttime the only thing he could hear after the black car drove far down the lane and into the darkness of the streets.

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Well that's another chapter done. Hope you liked it.


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